Release Me
by Lyra Matsuoka
Summary: The first of a deadly race, a companion to the progenitor himself, the last vampire bids a farewell to her history and her creator. Set after 'Dracula 2000'


Hi there all. So I was watching Dracula 2000 and had the urge to write a fanfic and so I did. That's the only excuse I have. I ran with my love of vampires and wrote this. Insane, no?  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nuff said.  
  
I am myself, like you somehow  
I'll ride the wave where it takes me  
I'll hold the pain, release me  
Dearest one, can you see me now?  
I am myself, like you somehow.  
I'll wait up in the dark for you to speak to me.  
I'll open up, release me.  
~ Pearl Jam ~  
  
  
Release Me  
By Lyra Matsuoka  
  
Rated PG-13 (just in case...)  
  
It really is a pity that Dracula is dead. Being the first has its little advantages, and one of those is that you are the father or mother of your race, and may shape said race to your will. Dracula became a vampire through the machinations of a vengeful God. I became one through his hunger and grief. The fact that Dracula grew to enjoy his existence is of very little consequence. He did not love it in the beginning, and no one is more aware of that fact than I.   
  
I was the first that he created, you see. I don't know where he was before he returned to Jerusalem; he never volunteered, and I never asked. I'm reasonably certain that he didn't mean to create me, that it was a spur of the moment decisions on his part. Whether or not he regretted it is not my concern, and never has been.  
  
I forget why I was out that night. Probably gathering water from the well or some equally mundane task. I remember little of my few years as a mortal; and that which does remain is what I have selected for my personal amusement. Sunrise...I remember that. And sunset. That sounds horribly cliché. But I remember what I can no longer have.   
  
You may find this hard to believe, but I am capable of love and hate. Actually, we are all capable of love and hate in the beginning, for we are nearly human at the start. But Dracula had a tendency to despise such weakness, and so his minions steeled themselves against all emotions he found to be repulsive. But I had no reason to do so. I was an accident. As such, Dracula was unable to exert control over me at a crucial stage in my development. He ran away after giving me his blood to replace what he had taken. I don't know why he did that. It is, as is nearly everything, of little consequence.   
  
Dracula had been the first of our kind, but I was a first as well. I was not the Master, but a master in my own right. Power surged through me, ebbed and flowed as quietly or as loudly as I allowed it to. I was stronger than before, but I did not know why. His knowledge was not mine. I did not even know his name at first. But whispering words floated back to me, and I came to know him as others had. Not as they did now, but as they *had*.   
  
"Who are you?" I would ask the stars nightly. "Where have you wandered, Shadow Warrior? Betrayer of the King of Jews...who will you be?"  
  
Who he would be became clear. A killer, a lone wolf determined to embrace the darkness which had been thrust upon him. Eventually, he found me. He had created another vampire, the third of our race, and this woman did not have the power he had expected. And so it was that Dracula began to remember those first frantic days of his existence. And he remembered one night that there had been a girl in the streets of Jerusalem whom he had attempted to keep alive.   
  
He sought me out a mere twenty-five years after he had created me. Dracula found me on a side street, conversing with a philosopher. I looked up, and saw the moon blocked by a shadow that seemed blacker than the night. The philosopher ran. I didn't move.   
  
He approached slowly, and I walked toward him. A cosmic energy formed between us. I was not drawn to him as his minions were, but as an equal. I had not been created in lust, or with cold deliberation. I had been created out of a compassion that none but I had ever seen in Dracula. And I knew his face. I remembered it from a time that seemed so long ago, and a name rose from the depths of my memory.   
  
"Juda..." I began, and he was there, his lips upon mine. It was unexpected, and yet I knew why he had done it. I felt the tug of desire, the slight crack in my defenses that he had slipped through. He tugged at my mind, and we melded together. His thoughts were mine, and mine were his. It was a jagged land, the meeting of our minds. I danced through his mind on the wings of a song, he teased me with his laughter.  
  
"Lilith..." he whispered as we pulled apart, and I smirked. Child of the Night, eh? Very well.  
  
"As you say, Dracula."  
  
He had named me, and the title he had chosen amused me. I kept it for that reason alone, and not due to any sentimental attachment I had to it or him. He invited me on his travels, and though I knew it was a simple curiosity that drove him, I was curious as well. So I followed. At the time, neither of us realized how important we would become to the other.   
  
While a passion such as ours was physical, and therefore of interest to Dracula most of the time, I grew bored quickly. To be honest, he was a frightfully predictable companion, and after a few decades we separated. Dracula and I were never really friends. He kept away from me after our few years together, and I from him. I made certain that I was discreet, and he was a flamboyant killer, thriving on the fairy stories that were told around campfires. That is why they passed me over in the campaign. When Van Helsing set out to destroy all vampires, I remained in the ancient world. You see, for one who is willing to live quietly, without flaunting the immortality that has been thrust upon them, survival is as simple as drawing breath.  
  
We remained lovers upon the occasion, but our connection grew stronger as each attempted to exert control over the other. While we slept, our paths would cross from time to time. And in that cool place where our minds became one we would lock our eyes; the killer and his victim, the king of the undead and his first minion. It was always I who turned away, I who would shift my feet upon the dreamers way and pass into another fantasy. I always felt his eyes on my back as I faded from his view.   
  
He was lonely at times. But then, so was I.  
  
I lost track of him, to be perfectly honest. I knew where he was simply by virtue of rumors. I paid attention, but I was not vigilant enough. The hints of a final battle were intense, though not unexpected. I heard the wind whisper of days of terror on the horizon, and I knew that we vampires had very nearly worn out our welcome in this world.   
  
The wind had spoken true.   
  
Humans came for Dracula's race. I felt the vampires die, one by one. I listened to their anguished cries to their Master, and I mocked them as they fell. They were weak, and he was selfish. But in the deepest part of my soul, I cried out in terror, for soon only he was left. Always before, I had heard the myriads of his creations in the back of my mind, but now Dracula and I were alone, and I knew it.  
  
The final time I saw him in my dreams was the day before he was trapped by Van Helsing in the London streets. His eyes were red, and he held out his hand. For the first time in more years than I can count, I reached in return. Our fingers brushed, and he sighed.   
  
"You are my life, Lilith. You shall preserve me through all. You are my first, and original. You are the bringer of all that will be."  
  
I did not respond. He could not die. I knew that and so did he. What we were unsure of was my immortality. But I nodded at last, and squeezed his hand. It was not a good bye, but it was a farewell to life as we knew it.   
  
And the next night I felt a searing pain. He was lost, trapped inside a coffin, and I did not know where he was. I searched frantically, desperate to stop the pain that was lancing through my body and mind. Dracula was not dying, but he was suffering, and that hurt nearly as much.   
  
"Where are you, Master of the Night? Where have you gone?"  
  
The stars were silent, and I bowed my head in defeat. I could not find him. And so I wandered. The world changed around me, and I shifted with the times - pliant in the wind of change, and in so doing, preserving myself through all.   
  
I knew when he rose once more. Knew when he woke from that slumber which only the living dead may attempt. I felt it, felt the vibration of his first step shiver through my body. The most seductive evil of all time, unleashed upon this modern world.  
  
But it was too brief of a moment to rekindle an existence. I saw him for the last time in my dreams. The wind blew my clothing, and whipped through his hair. It was real. It was Jerusalem. And he showed that woman, Mary, what he had shown no other. Not even I had been privileged to that secret. But I saw it in a moment of pain and discovery. I felt it in that one instant when Dracula's heart shifted slightly. He did not dare to believe in happiness, in miracles. But he believed in camaraderie, the sort that he and I had always been on the verge of sharing. It was so close that he could nearly touch it, and that completed some part of him.  
  
He was not healed at the end. Not by any stretch of human faith and compassion. No, many parts of Dracula were as broken as they had ever been. But before the sun rose for him again, Dracula granted a freedom.  
  
He released Mary in the doing. And he released his guilt. I tell you now, that when he looked at Mary in those final moments, he saw himself in her eyes. He saw himself, and he saw me.   
  
"I release you."  
  
I heard those words in my mind, and crumpled at the force behind them.   
  
It was not a healing. There are crimes; crimes which will never be atoned for. But there are parts of living, especially living an immortal life, which require a certain benevolence toward much.   
  
The King of the Vampires extended that benevolence for the last time.  
  
I took the chance, seized the gift which was offered. I wept tears tinged pink for Dracula; I wept for the man he had been, the creature he had become, and the grace he had found at last. I wept for Mary, whose life was forever changed.   
  
I did not feel Dracula burn. But I saw it, saw it from the alley where I hid, watching. He did not wish to be saved. He blazed in death as he had in life. The sun, which once held sway over him, was the gateway to his freedom. He left the night and this world for something new.   
  
I wish him joy of it.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Mary Van Helsing woke to the sound of a closing door. Alarmed, she reached for the light without thought, extending her senses. Nothing moved within the apartment, and nothing moved in the shop below. But Mary was uneasy, and rose quickly. Pulling on a robe, and grasping a crossbow, Mary descended the stairs.   
  
The front door was closed, but the silver door to the vault was open wide. A breath of fear caught in her throat as Mary hurried through the catacombs toward a final frightening destination. The safeguards and traps had not been sprung, but doors were open and torches blazed all through the tomb. A final door stood ajar, silver gleaming in the flickering glow. Mary approached Dracula's coffin slowly.   
  
The coffin lay silent, a testimony of protection. It was undisturbed, untouched. But atop it, in the very center of the burnished lid, lay a single red rose. Mary lifted it slowly, gazing at it.   
  
On the street outside, a woman with long dark hair stood watching the old house. Her black trench coat flapped slightly, her hair rippled. Her eyes were a cool silver, her demeanor and expression too aloof and odd to be considered attractive. The constable hesitated to approach her, but summoned the courage to tap her on the shoulder.  
  
"No loitering, ma'am," he said, his words conveying respect and authority. The woman gazed at him for a moment, then turned back toward the building nodding slowly as she did so.   
  
"Yes," she murmured, her accent speaking of far off places and exotic people. "Time to move on."  
  
Without another word she turned and began to walk away. The constable sighed and returned to his patrol. He never noticed the woman stopping, focusing on the stone building once more. He did not see the owner of that building look out the window, a rose in her hand.   
  
The woman in black backed away from the house, her eyes on Mary. Mary stared back. Finally, Lilith raised one hand in a salute, and turned away. Mary watched her go, watched her fade into the shadows, and finally dropped the curtain and returned upstairs. She found the envelope on her pillow, the cream colored stationary heavy and the black calligraphy flawless. Several sheets of heavy paper lay open on her bed, telling the tale of the one other being whose freedom had hinged upon Dracula's life. The card lay solitary amidst the carefully scripted pages. Lifting it gently, Mary opened the card and read the verse penned there.   
  
"Dearest one, can you see me now?  
I am myself, like you somehow.  
I'll wait up in the dark for you to speak to me.  
I'll open up, release me."   
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*   
  
Dabbling is fun! Hee! Thanks for reading, and please review! I love feedback!  
  
Peace, Love and All That Jazz,  
Lyra 


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